Damian Lewis Talks Homeland Season 2
Actor Damian Lewis has done a lot of great work including the critically acclaimed series “Band of Brothers”, but it’s his Emmy Winning role as Sergeant Nicholas Brody on the Showtime hit series “Homeland” that has everyone talking right now. He stopped by the SiriusXM studios this week to sit down with Ron Bennington and talk about his recent Emmy win and the upcoming Season Two. Want more Damian? Read our interview with him last year as season one started taking off.
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Ron Bennington: Last year when you were in here, you and I were trying to convince everyone that it was a good show. This year, everyone knows it.
Damian Lewis: Yeah. Look, the Emmys was just a glorious weekend. We weren’t convinced that the academy would be ready to jump all over us and lick us up and down like they did.
Ron Bennington: They did.
Damian Lewis: We’re very happy they did. Especially in my category, but I’m overjoyed. But the show is managing that Holy Grail, to achieve the Holy Grail of keeping a twisty, plotty thriller and making everybody sweaty on a Sunday night and keeping it grounded in some kind of psychological and political reality. They’re pulling it off. It’s amazing.
Ron Bennington: I have friends that are now that are going back and watching On Demand all the first season. But I even think that that’s different than having that week in between to keep the tension going, to wonder what exactly’s happening. Because this is one of those shows that kind of stays with you week to week. And it is a weird thing that we love that tension, isn’t it?
Damian Lewis: Yeah. It’s good drama. The suspense and the tension on the show, it gets the pulse racing. People feel engaged. And it’s a kind of escapism in itself. Sort of an adrenal rush like that, watching something. But also it’s functioning as a relationship drama, which I think has surprised people as well.
Ron Bennington: The way these characters connect to each other.
Damian Lewis: Yeah and the way that there’s a damaged, a slightly broken love story at the center of it. But there seems to be a love story between Carrie and Brody who seem drawn to each other. There’s a recognition in each of them. They both have these conditions, bi-polar, manic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and those conditions manifest themselves in similar ways. And these two sort of cling on to each other like spent swimmers. It’s turned out to be very compelling. And for those people who don’t really engage in the political aspect of the show, as I overheard 2 girls in the elevator only the other day, one girl’s just saying, talking about Brody and just saying – (female voice) – “I mean just imagine going out with that guy. You’d never know if he was a liar.” (laughs) And so, people just are taking from it what they want.
Ron Bennington: It is true, but the honest thing is like here, yesterday in New York, I leave here and there’s 2 Iranian groups that were battling back and forth with the police in between them. And I’m like – what happens in “Homeland” is always kind of in the back of the rest of our minds. There is some kind of mass paranoia whether we need that paranoia, whether we indulge in it, whether it becomes pornography in our life. When you see it happens with Claire Danes’ character is what can happen when you get in too deep and you start looking for things everywhere.
Damian Lewis: Well that might be true. I mean look, 9-11 changed the world. It was shocking and unforgivable. And we went to deal with it abroad in places like Iran, Afghanistan, sorry, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Ron Bennington: Soon to be Iran, it looks like though. It looks like that could happen very very – it could happen. If it happens tomorrow nobody’s going to be shocked by it.
Damian Lewis: Well see, perhaps. And season 2 starts, with Israel having made a strike on Iran which of course is uppermost in everyone’s minds. Although (Benjamin) Netanyahu, I think, seems to have kind of lost his dialogue there from what I reading recently. So I’m not quite sure where that’s going. But obviously it’s uppermost in people’s minds and again the cleverness of the writing, they just jump that. And they go – okay, let’s imagine that has happened already. So what’s the world like now? You were just touching on surveillance. It’s really what you’re talking about. None of us can be certain who’s watching who. Who are we? What identifies us? We had a Labour government for a long time, prior to the Conservative government that’s in now. And they installed more surveillance cameras than at any other time in our history. We are a watched nation back in the U.K. You guys are here. Wikileaks just illustrates that even governments now are watched because material is available through all these new media outlets, new content outlets and through new media, so we are all being watched all the time and I think it’s a frightening prospect.
Ron Bennington: We used to worry about Big Brother or you know we read the book when we were all young, but now regular people will put up videos constantly. So if I’m walking down the street in New York and a scuffle starts to take place, I look around and 15 people are pointing their phones at it. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as privacy anymore.
Damian Lewis: I worry on sociological level and psychological level that it will actually preclude the ability for intimacy anymore. Two people coming together, conversing, exchanging ideas and the nitty gritty of a conversation. And the complexities of two people being in the same room with their different energies and different views, different make ups. We can have virtual relationships with any one we want and we have followers now, so the “cult of me” is the most exciting thing about me right now – is how many followers are following me on various social networks. But actually I don’t know any of these people. I don’t have to engage with any of them really. Certainly not more than a sentence or two. So, I think that’s a concern just the effect it will have on us as, dare I say it, human beings.
Ron Bennington: And what an interesting place for you guys to have taken this show to. I mean, it really is as cutting edge and I don’t think that when we first started to watch the show, we thought that that was going to play a major part in it. But the fact that it is so complicated these days, that when you watch “Homeland”, there’s normally 11, 12 layers going on all the time.
Damian Lewis: Yeah. It’s great thriller writing. They set – it’s like letting 6 dogs out of their traps at the dog track and off they go, careening off down the track. And one dog is ahead at one point and then he isn’t, depending on what story they’re pursuing. But they all end up back in the trap. And that’s the beauty of their writing, that everything culminates and comes to a head at the same time which of course, just creates chaos. And then you have things, writefully phrases like switchbacks and reversing expectations and all those kinds of things to trick the audience. But what’s interesting about this show, I think, is that they – if you were in a writing seminar, they might well say to you that a character is defined by his or her actions. So get characters doing things. And from that, the character will be defined. What they’ve done on this show very cleverly from the outset, certainly with these 2 central characters, they’ve given them conditions. They’ve given them already an extremely strong story, an extremely strong psychological condition, and every thing that happens in terms of action is generated by their personality, by their conditions. And so by definition, the story can be character driven. And I think that’s what making it so rich.
Ron Bennington: I had actually bet last year, I go – Brody’s not going to make it out of the season. He’s going to be a one season character, we’re going to pick up a new guy. Because I thought they have pushed this so fast, but what I didn’t realize is the next levels. The fact that he’s going to be political. Thatopens up a whole other story about the way we are about politicians. The way we look at them and the way we manipulate them and the way manipulate us, I think is fascinating.
Damian Lewis: Yeah. I don’t disagree. It’s long been the case here that the Presidential campaign is really sort of a personality race and just how presentable are you and how do you sound. Policy is kind of secondary. And we have that creeping into our politics at home as well. Brody is extremely TV camera friendly. He has an extremely high profile. I spoke to Heath Shuler, the congressman for the 11th district down in North Carolina. He was an all star football player, played with the Washington Redskins. When he made it clear that he wanted to get into public office, he was wooed and courted by both sides to the extent that the top dogs called. Bush was on the phone at one point. Clinton was on the phone at one point. You know, because he has such face recognition, he already had such profile, they wanted him. Brody is that guy. For anyone who thinks – well that’s a bit unrealistic isn’t it? This sort of accelerated political trajectory, it’s not at all.
Ron Bennington: Absolutely not.
Damian Lewis: They go after these guys ruthlessly, they’re so valuable to them. And as long as he isn’t too gaffe prone, Brody will be hugely helpful to Vice-President Walden in his running for VP.
Ron Bennington: There’s so many reasons to watch this show. The technology is so incredibly up to date. Every thing that’s happening in the world comes down. And we were talking about this last year, but it just seems like Showtime just keeps banging these shows out now and you guys have become a real powerhouse. And then finally the Emmys got around and saw it this year. So congratulations for that.
Damian Lewis: Thank you. Thanks.
Ron Bennington: Best of luck keeping this thing going because I know you’re always walking the tightrope with this show so keep that going man. And I’ll see you next time through.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh_TPjZJCRc]
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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.
